


burning both ends of the night

by jdphoenix



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 11:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4477949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This always happens when it rains. She gets her hopes up and she’s just left disappointed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burning both ends of the night

**Author's Note:**

> For the last day of fosterson week - **the future of the ship** \- I kind of threw my very, _very_ limited knowledge of comics canon into a blender with the MCU and this happened. Hopefully no one who loves the comics thinks this is an insult to those storylines.
> 
> Also, despite the title coming from a Garth Brooks song about a young man's first time, there is no sex at all in this.

A clap of thunder startles Jane awake. Lightning slips around the edges of the blackout curtains. She blinks the stars from her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Of course he’s already up. She stays perfectly still in the dark, making it easier for his hand to find her face. His rough fingertips brush her cheek. “I was hoping it wouldn’t wake you up.”

The rain is pelting the side of the house so hard she thinks it must be hailing. Her heart _hurts_ and she can’t tell if it’s because it’s sped up or gone still. He shifts closer to her, his warmth like a cloud in the storm-cooled air. The blankets lift up and the mattress next to her shoulder lowers under his arm. She feels the barest brush of his leg against hers and then the stutter of his body seizing up.

“Damn,” he grunts as his back hits the mattress again.

Jane’s heart steadies to a more reasonable pace. She curls closer to him, pressing a kiss into his shoulder. “I’ll get you a compress and start the coffee.”

He tries to stop her with reaching hands and a string of no’s. “I’d rather have you,” he says, voice smaller than she’s ever heard it.

She grips the edge of the mattress. “I’ll be back,” she says, and is proud of herself for managing a flirty tone. The light clicks on behind her as she goes but she doesn’t turn back. She doesn’t want to see him, not until she has a chance to pull herself together.

She goes through the motions on autopilot, used to the familiar routine. Outside the kitchen window, the clouds are a blanket over the desert. She can just see the sun setting behind the mountains, turning the dark undersides to a deep purple. There won’t be any stargazing for her tonight, but she has other work to occupy her time.

The microwave beeps and she grabs a towel from the front of the oven to hold the steaming compress in as she jogs back down the hall. He’s sitting up when she walks through the door, and with a little time to herself, the sight of his face doesn’t shock her the way it sometimes does first thing in the day.

There’s nothing _wrong_ with his face - except that it’s all wrong. The hair and eyes are the right color, the smile is even the same sometimes - like now, when it falls on her - but the features are a little too narrow, a little too smooth. Someone seeing him out of the corner of their eye might think for a moment that he’s Thor, but no one looking directly at him would say they look alike at all aside from their coloring.

She rounds the bed and sits on the edge of it, carefully sliding her lap beneath his leg so he doesn’t have to bend.

“I can do that,” he says, like he always does when she ties the compress in place, but she’s been doing it since their second week together. It took them that long to start sleeping together - out of his own sense of chivalry and her worries that she’d be taking advantage - and after that it was less than a month before they were living together. It all went incredibly fast once she stopped holding herself back. She’s still not certain that was the right decision; she knows he’s looking for the right time to propose.

The worst part is that she wants to say yes. Not really, not completely, but a part of her loves their little life together, loves not having to worry about growing old while he stays young or answering the door to find a grim-faced Avenger carrying his cloak. Again.

This always happens when it rains. She gets her hopes up that it’ll bring him back to himself, but it never does and she’s just left disappointed.

She runs her fingers over the scar that cuts down his calf, following it from the edge of the towel to where it ends in a sharp point. He thinks he was shot in Iraq, that he was a medic with the army. He doesn’t know his own brother - not dead even though both he and Jane saw him die - nearly cut the leg out from under him in a final betrayal that turned him and all of Asgard mortal, trapped them in mortal lives with mortal memories.

“We don’t have to be up for a while yet,” he says.

The alarm clicks over to the radio almost before he’s finished. They both laugh as the familiar buzz of emergency alert cuts through the patter of rain.

“They’ll probably need you early,” she says, slipping out from under his leg. She drops a kiss on his cheek before heading for the bathroom. He moans and moves to follow more slowly.

It’s easy to get lost in the routine of their humdrum daily lives. Washing up, getting dressed, making breakfast while the sun sets. They both work nights - that’s part of why they fit so well, they’re both waking up just as the rest of the world is winding down. Her to keep watch over the stars. Him to run the town’s ER.

It’s not Puente Antiguo, it’s a little bigger than that was and on its way to being built up. But it’s close enough that sometimes she pretends he didn’t fall from the sky and he never left. Sometimes she pretends this is all real. That scares her more than Thor’s smile on another face, more than the scar on his leg, more than her nightmares - and there are an increasing number of them lately.

Most of the time she convinces herself this is good. He’s always showing little signs of familiarity: their short jump from dating to living together, the way he shakes his head at news coverage of Tony and Steve’s ongoing conflict, his undying chivalry, how he sometimes looks at the junk pile in the backyard. He never talks about clearing it away, but he’ll stop and stare from time to time, like he knows part of it isn’t like the rest. She tells herself that, with enough time, something will snap into place and he’ll remember it all.

She tells herself she’s doing the right thing by staying with him.

The small TV they keep on the kitchen counter recounts the latest Avenger news, always a big story. There’s not much new on the Tony vs. Steve front, but there was a possible Hulk sighting in Brazil and there’s another rumor that Thor’s back and saving lives. Jane hates those. A red cape and a couple coincidental thunderstorms do not equal Thor.

She glances at him while he cracks the eggs one-handed. She wishes it _was_ Thor saving all those people, but she has the proof right here that it’s not. She switches the TV to another local station, hoping for more news on he storm.

The poptarts have just gone in the toaster when a knock sounds on the door. They exchange a look. Typically their visitors are tourists who got turned around in town and need to find their way back towards the highway before they start driving into the desert. Anyone coming by in this weather is lucky; they could’ve gotten lost or hurt if they’d gone much farther.

She moves to put the milk for the coffee back in the fridge, but he stops her with a shake of his head. He turns off the eggs, letting them finish cooking on the residual heat, and grabs his cane to head for the door. She can at least finish up while he’s gone, or so she thinks. He’s barely away a minute before he’s calling her name.

“Coming!” she calls, and stirs the eggs quick on her way out to keep them from sticking. “Something wrong?” Her stomach drops out on the edge of the foyer and it’s like déjà vu. She’s done this before. Gone to meet him and found him with-

“Luke Lawrence,” the smiling man in the doorway says. Jane doesn’t punch him in the face, but it’s a near thing. He gives her some bullshit story about being a reporter hunting down the _real_ story on the mess in London a few years ago.

A broad hand slides along her back. “One more?” He’s asking if “Luke” will be staying for breakfast.

“No,” she says, purposefully turning her back on Loki and putting herself between the two of them. She sets her hands against the broad, familiar chest and smiles up into the face she doesn’t quite love. “This shouldn’t take long and they’ll need you at work. Go check the eggs.”

“All right.” He’s noticed there’s something wrong, or something off at least. Maybe he just remembers how much she doesn’t like talking about her Avenger-related adventures. It might jog his memory to hear about things they did together before, but whenever Jane tries, she hears Darcy’s voice in her head. _“It’s a good thing Thor came back when he did. I mean, can you imagine how bad any guy you dated after him would feel once they found out your ex looked like_ that _?”_

He drops a kiss on her forehead and heads back into the kitchen. Once the beat of his cane against the floor fades, she turns to face Loki. He doesn’t look anymore like Loki than Thor does like himself, but it’s definitely him. She’s got that same feeling she did the first time she saw Thor like this, like that split-second when you first see a friend with a new hair color, when you recognize them but you also don’t. Only this is always a million times worse.

“Dr. Foster,” Loki says, “you have no idea how long I’ve been looking for you. I suppose I probably should’ve expected you to be someplace like this, after that nastiness with Tho-”

A bolt of lightning, closer than any other since she woke up, flashes somewhere behind the house and he’s knocked right off his feet. She watches, grim-faced as he actually flips over in midair. Her hand clenches around Mjolnir’s handle and she thinks the hammer might have enjoyed knocking him down as much as she enjoyed seeing it happen.

“Get up,” she says coldly. He gapes at the hammer in her hand. “Get. Up.”

His open mouth closes into a cruel smile. “You. It’s been _you_ mucking up my plans.” He sounds a little in awe of that, but it could just be the way climbing to his feet makes his voice shift against the sound of the rain. “Here I thought it was Thor playing possum but really it’s his mortal whore-”

She’s still almost a foot shorter than him, but it’s easy to be intimidating with Mjolnir in her hand. She swings it up, stopping it just short of his chin, and holds it there a moment to prove she can before forcing him backward onto the porch. She doesn’t stop until he’s out in the rain and she’s still safe beneath the awning.

“Haven’t you done enough?” she asks. “Wasn’t cursing him - cursing _all_ of them - good enough for you?”

“I saved their lives,” Loki spits. “They would have died, every last one of them, but I did what needed to be done to save them.”

“So you could kill them now, one by one?” She’s been trying to save them, but she doesn’t have Heimdall’s sight, only Thor’s powers and none of his experience. She got lucky the first few times, but it’s been getting more difficult since Loki realized someone was working to stop his plans.

He grins, wide and sharp. The rain’s soaked through his clothes and hair, making him look like a drowned rat. He doesn’t seem to care. “Not all,” he confesses, “but those deserving of my vengeance, yes.”

She gives him a small shove, driving him down another step. “Thor loves you. He was glad when he found out you were alive, even after everything you did. But if you hurt him, if you don’t stop, I’ll make you.”

“You think you can? With _that_?” He nods to Mjolnir at her side.

“Maybe not.” The hammer goes a little heavy in her hand, like it’s angry at her. She ignores it. Loki’s the problem now, she can soothe Mjolnir’s feelings later. “But I won’t let you keep hurting them. I swear, you keep this up, I’ll take the Aether back if that’s what it takes to end this.”

“Dark words for one worthy of Mjolnir.” It’s a taunt, but a weak one. He’s giving her a second glance, worried he’s misjudged her. If he thought he could scare her, he has.

He turns away, but doesn’t make it more than halfway down the narrow walkway before turning back around. “He doesn’t remember, does he? Not a thing?”

She doesn’t answer, but the way her lips thin into a tight line is as good as.

“That must be terribly difficult for you.” The false sympathy is exactly what she expects from him, but when it isn’t followed up by a parting jab, her gut twists. Whatever he plans to do with that information will be a lot worse than a metaphorical slap in the face.

She watches him disappear into the shadows and the car - if it’s even a real car - sitting at the end of their drive dissolves into smoke. Once she’s sure he’s gone, she gives Mjolnir a final squeeze before hiding it under the porch swing where it won’t be noticed.

He’s waiting for her back inside, breakfast made but untouched. “Is everything all right?” he asks, looking concerned.

She hurries around the table and, before he can stand, catches his face to kiss him. It’s long and slow and makes her blood roll like thunder through her veins. He’s breathless when she finally pulls back, but his hands are twisted in her shirt and hair, holding her close. He blinks through a haze and she strokes a hand down his face, pretending it’s another one.

“It will be,” she promises.


End file.
